Usually, the mention of John Campbell's name brings back imagery of iron furnaces and those like Campbell making fortunes from them.

Many people have never known that Campbell probably risked that fortune, along with his freedom and life, to help former slaves gain their freedom.

In a public ceremony at 3 p.m. Sunday, Campbell's former home on 305 North Fifth Street, now the Ironton-Lawrence County Community Action Organization building, will be recognized by the Ohio Historical Society as a historical landmark.

Professor Bob Leith of Ohio University Southern will deliver a monologue on the life of John Campbell, which will be followed by remarks from Owen Pleasant. Pleasant is the grandson of a former slave who was buried at the Burlington 37 Cemetery, the final resting place of 37 slaves freed by their Virginian owner upon his death. After the sign designating the Campbell home as a landmark is unveiled, the Ironton High School Band will play and spectators will be able to tour the first floor of the home.

"We're hoping for a nice, cool Sunday where the public can come out and step back into local history," said Marilyn Grant Howard, director of operations for the CAO.

Howard said she is pleased that the state is recognizing the John Campbell home and is willing to provide a marker. This identification, she said, could help market the area as a tourist attraction.

Campbell was a native of Brown County and grew up with the Rev. John Rankin, a well-known abolitionist, said Virginia Bryant, a docent for the Lawrence County Historical Society. Rankin's former home in Ripley is now an Underground Railroad museum. Many of Campbell's fellow ironmasters shared his sentiments and helped several slaves reach their freedom.

Researching the Underground Railroad, Bryant said, has taken some time. The railroad was illegal, so no official records were kept of its activities at that time. Most knowledge of it is rooted in stories and folklore passed down through families, which have had to be authenticated.

Campbell kept the slaves in both his home and stable, which was located a block away from the house, Bryant said. They were then moved into wagons and traveled along what is now State Route 93 into Jackson County, where they received more help.

According to Bryant, Wayne National Forest Archaeologist Ann Cramer was an important figure behind getting the marker at the Campbell home.

"Most people know John Campbell for his business prowess, but he was a major abolitionist," Cramer said.

Cramer is a member of the Ohio Bicentennial Committee's Underground Railroad Advisory Committee. To commemorate the railroad's important part of Ohio's history, she said, the committee was asked to research several places for historical markers.

Since 1997, Cramer said she has studied the Wayne National Forest region north of Ironton and has discovered that Campbell was a significant figure with the Underground Railroad, especially because of his ties to the Poke Patch area of Washington Township, a hotbed of the railroad's activities.

Any area of Ohio along the Ohio River exhibited heavy activity because it would border Kentucky and what used to be Virginia, both slave states, Cramer said. The activities were risky for anyone who would choose to participate because they took the chance of being fined, imprisoned, beaten or killed.

"They risked everything they worked for," she said.

Campbell's prominence in the iron industry may have been the reason he was never punished for what he did, Cramer said. Because of his distinction, it was probably unlikely that no one knew what he was doing.

"We'll probably never know," she said.